1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated circuit with adjusting elements, which are connected in a first manufacturing stage via tracks to terminal pads lying outside the integrated circuit. Furthermore, the invention also relates to a method for manufacturing such an integrated circuit.
2. Description of the Background Art
Integrated circuits with adjusting elements are known in the conventional art. The adjusting elements typically have, for example, a parallel connection of a resistor and a diode, whereby the adjusting element lies between a positive potential, prevailing within the integrated circuit, and a reference potential, which prevails in the semiconductor substrate of the integrated circuit. The adjusting element is connected via the track to a terminal pad lying outside the integrated circuit, a so-called zap pad. Current pulses, with which the diode is shifted optionally to a permanently conductive state, are supplied if appropriate via the terminal pad and the track to the adjusting elements, so that the resistor lying parallel to the diode is optionally bypassed. Electrical parameters of the integrated circuit are adjusted once bit-by-bit by this one-time process within the scope of the manufacturing process, whereby the conductivity state of the diode (permanently conducting or permanently blocking) corresponds to a bit.
After the adjustment, the integrated circuit produced together with other integrated circuits on a wafer is diced. The dicing usually occurs by a mechanical separating process, for example, by a saw cut, which is made through the terminal pads lying outside the integrated circuit. For dicing, the integrated circuits produced on a wafer are separated from one another by a scribe line. The saw cut is made within the scribe line. During the dicing, it can happen that the metal of the terminal pads in the separation plane is smeared by chip formation or by plastic deformation resulting from mechanical stress, so that dielectric layers lying between the semiconductor material and the terminal pads are bridged within the depth of the semiconductor material of the integrated circuit. In this case, the potentials prevailing in the semiconductor substrate can act within the adjusting element via the metal bridge formed, for example, by a metal chip and in an undesirable way alter the electrical parameters, which were in fact to be set by the adjusting process. Metal bridges of this type therefore produce a shunt between the reference potential in the semiconductor substrate and the affected adjusting element.